The Third Deployment, an Innate Dragon Phoenix

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[Random identity: abandoned child of two clans · Dragon Phoenix]

[Random timeline: 100,000 years ago]

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[Year 1: you were born in the ancestral grounds of the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan.

Your mother possessed the royal bloodline of the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan, and the clan placed great hopes in you.

Yet no one expected that, at birth, you would possess not only the Heavenly Phoenix wings of the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan, but also the dragon horns of the Ancient Void Dragon Clan.

The Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan was shocked. Only afterward did they learn that your mother had conceived you after mating with someone of the Ancient Void Dragon Royal Clan's bloodline.

From birth, you possessed two of the Beast Realm's four supreme bloodlines, just like the legendary Dragon Phoenix.

Upon learning this, the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan reluctantly accepted you, hoping you could grow into the legendary Dragon Phoenix and lead them to surpass their mortal enemies, the Ancient Void Dragon Clan. But because your mother had engaged in an illicit relationship with a member of the Ancient Void Dragon Clan, the current Heavenly Phoenix Clan leader put righteousness before kinship and had her executed outright, extracting her entire bloodline and pouring it into the blood pool.

The Heavenly Phoenix Clan poured resources into raising you.]

[Year 2: you did not grow or develop quickly. You were even slower than ordinary Heavenly Phoenixes of your clan, and fell far short of those with the Heavenly Phoenix royal bloodline.

The elders and leader of the Heavenly Phoenix Clan began to grow suspicious of you, doubting whether you truly were the supposed Dragon Phoenix.]

[Year 10: as time passed, you fell far behind in growth.

Young beasts your age could even begin fighting, while you had only barely learned to walk and speak, innately duller and clumsier than the others.

That same year, the clan began its bloodline testing.

Only then did the Heavenly Phoenix Clan discover that, although you possessed both their royal bloodline and that of the Ancient Void Dragon Clan, the bloodlines within you did not merge. Instead, because they were evenly matched and constantly clashing, you could not even bring out the strength of a single bloodline.

The Heavenly Phoenix Clan was bitterly disappointed in you and regretted the resources they had invested in you. In their fury, they were about to erase you.

But at that critical moment, your Ancient Void Dragon father, whom you had never met, appeared.

He took a blow from the Heavenly Phoenix Clan leader and tore open space to send you away. You met him only once, and it was also the last time.

To cover your escape, he failed to get away. Alone, he fought the entire Heavenly Phoenix Clan. His dragon hide was flayed, his dragon tendons ripped out, and his bones ground to dust. He died utterly.

You appeared in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains of the Southern Region of the Central Plains, also known as the Beast Region. You had never been here before, because the Heavenly Phoenix Clan had its own independent small world and disdained sharing a place with the low-tier magical beasts of the Beast Region.

Your strength was meager. You could barely fight the weakest Tier 1 magical beasts, making you a genuine weakling in the Beast Region.

You could only huddle in a cave, taking advantage of the night, when no other magical beasts were about, to eat some wild fruit and drink some stream water.

The shortage of food resources greatly prolonged your growth cycle.

You did not complain. You simply followed the memories in your mind and began creating a magical beast cultivation method suited to yourself, using human cultivation methods as a basis.

Gradually, you began to see a way forward.]

[Year 15: you eked out a precarious existence in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, and the improvements to your cultivation method were nearing completion.

Drawing on the Spirit Refining Art and other cultivation methods, you developed a secret art that could strengthen your physique by devouring the flesh and blood of magical beasts.

After creating the secret art, you first set your sights on a Tier 1 Red-Tailed Fox.

You ambushed it while it was drinking. With the aid of the dangerous terrain, you successfully wounded it severely, then chased it for several hundred meters before killing it.

You used your secret art and devoured the Red-Tailed Fox completely. Flesh, blood, bones, heart, blood essence, and a Tier 1 magic core-you swallowed them all.

You spent several days digesting it. Your body grew stronger, and you no longer looked malnourished.

Afterward, you became the most elusive hunter in the Ten Thousand Great Mountains.

Tier 1 Shallow-Water Crocodiles, Tier 1 Moon-Spotted Dogs, Tier 1 Gale Wolves...

Your physical strength and power gradually exceeded the limits of Tier 1 magical beasts.]

[Year 17: after devouring a Tier 2 magical beast whole, you became a Tier 2 magical beast yourself. You also successfully condensed the energy within you into a magic core, gaining more precise control over your power.]

[Year 25: through constant devouring, the vast energy within you continued to accumulate and grow, allowing you to smoothly break through to Tier 3.

You still were not strong, but at the very least, you were no longer at the bottom of the food chain and had gained some ability to protect yourself.

At the same time, you discovered that, as you devoured more and more magical beasts, the balance between the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Bloodline and Ancient Void Dragon Bloodline that had always opposed each other within you had actually begun to shift.

The Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Bloodline gradually gained the upper hand.

You recalled a Tier 2 avian magical beast with a trace of Heavenly Phoenix bloodline that you had devoured the previous year, and suspected this might be one reason.

With the Heavenly Phoenix bloodline gaining the upper hand, you could actually bring out some of the Heavenly Phoenix Clan's bloodline advantages.

Your speed increased explosively, and you awakened your own innate beast flame.

Your bloodline advantages finally began to manifest.

You did not like your Heavenly Phoenix bloodline, but you knew it was your capital for taking revenge on the Ancient Heavenly Phoenix Clan, so you did not deliberately suppress it.]

[Year 30: relying on the tremendous speed granted by your Heavenly Phoenix bloodline, you ambushed large numbers of magical beasts and devoured them completely, becoming a Fourth-Order Magical Beast.

You deliberately devoured magical beasts with Heavenly Phoenix bloodline, however faint it was.

The Heavenly Phoenix bloodline within you gained the upper hand, granting you further enhancements.

You also encountered some subordinate races possessing the Ancient Void Dragon Bloodline. You captured some, but only imprisoned them without devouring them.

Because as soon as you devoured them, the Ancient Void Dragon Bloodline within you would grow slightly stronger. If it once again came to stand on equal footing with your Heavenly Phoenix bloodline, every enhancement you had gained would vanish.]

[Year 41: relying on your strength as a Fourth-Order Magical Beast, you carved out a tiny territory on the outskirts of the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. Your pace of devouring magical beasts did not slow.

That same year, you encountered an unconscious eight-year-old boy. After a moment's hesitation, you saved him.

After he awoke, you learned his identity.

He turned out to be a descendant of a branch of the Stone Clan, an Emperor Clan. His name was Shi Huang.]